A teacher sent this commentary about what’s happening in her city of Syracuse, New York.
She writes:
“As part of the teacher evaluation in Syracuse, our lovely union negotiated a student survey which would count as 6% of our evaluation. It’s called the Tripod survey, but I don’t know what that means. I’ve attached the directions we were given, which includes the questions for grades K-2. They have 40 questions, and when you get to 6-8, there are over 100.
While there are questions about the classroom, there are also questions about home life. How that pertains to my classroom, I don’t know. And, there are more “personal” questions the higher the grade level. I suspect that some of this information will find its way to the information cloud in the sky.
There will be name labels on each survey, which will be removed prior to collecting the completed survey. However, if it is anything like the surveys we’ve had to give to students in the past, their school ID # is still on the pages. Otherwise, why bother with name labels which will be removed? Why not just hand out surveys like you do the NY tests? I am uncomfortable with the whole thing, and really ticked off at the union which approved, sight unseen, what was going to be done.
Although my kids, all 4 of them, went to public schools in Syracuse, I fear for the future of the kids there now. Do we have any chance at all of putting a stop to what is going on? Money really is the root of all evil.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The idea that student or parent surveys have anything to do with a teacher’s formal evaluation is beyond insane. The idea that a teacher’s union would do anything other than completely condemn such an idea has me wondering if I’m living in a surreal alternate universe.
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What role would you have parents play in their children’s education?
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Um…to be their parents, and to be actively involved in their school and their lives? What kind of a question is that?
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But active involvement in the school might mean that there is some formal notice of the parent’s opinion about the relationship staff has with their children. You take this to be “beyond insane”. What would you say are the permissible boundaries for parental involvement in a school?
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I’m not saying they shouldn’t be involved! Parents should always be communicating with the principal and teachers about matters pertaining to the school. They INFORMALLY are evaluating teachers all the time, which is good. They can’t be part of a teacher’s formal evaluation because they have no obligation to be objective.
“Hey Mr. _____; pass my kid this quarter and you’ll pass my evaluation.” That scenerio would be encouraged with parent evaluations.
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“. . . if I’m living in a surreal alternate universe.”
Well, to paraphrase Lewis Black: “I took LSD when I was younger to prepare myself for times like now”.
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What a crock. It’s bad enough King, Cuomo, Gates, etc. are killing us, but NYSUT keeps throwing us under the bus too.
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No doubt that these “results” will be filling the million square foot spy center in the desert of Utah (or Nevada, I’ve heard both locales mentioned). We have risen to the apex of a security state reality, whose citizenry have been reduced to lab rats of the
CIA/NSA monitors. The fact that Snowden’s heroic act to arouse a sleeping populace has been labeled a traitorous revelation, shows just far down the road to NO privacy we have become. Teachers across the nation are being set up for career failure, where
massive “data” is stored, and when it is decided by the overlords that a particular
teacher must be jettisoned, they will scurry to their hidden files and produce reasons. To me, it seems a bit of overkill since district’s, such as DPS, can just lie outrageously about any proposed victim. Facts, evidence there, are as bogus as facts when Henry VIII’s
kangaroo court set up to eliminate Anne. Worked then, same scenario is working across the corporate cabal of insatiable greed, and simultaneously middle class destruction. It’s all acts in the same play…
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A group of parents need to file a lawsuit against the government (states?) over the collection of data for InBloom. Right now is the time as there are other groups suing the government over spying. InBloom has nothing to do with national security so the government can’t use that as an excuse. Most people have never heard of this and have no idea what is going on.
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“Collection of data…” Why, that’s why the federal government has just put the finishing marble halls (no doubt) in that MILLION SQUARE FOOT SPY CENTER in the middle of the desert of Nevada
(could be Utah). If you’d like to see what we’ve paid for, go to
lindamoultonhowe earthfiles and see the monstrosity only Orwell could have envisioned!
“data/spying” is running a muck and those who try to reveal the unconstitutional invasion of privacy is called a “traitor?” Who is a traitor, but one (or agencies/groups) who subvert the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Just hope Snowden, as many, even in DC, fear that he will be a victim of “extreme prejudice” the sanitized word for murder.
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I agree with Susan – now is a great time to file a suit against inBloom. What states have contracted to send their student/teacher data to it? I believe the suit should also be against the DOE and Arne Duncan for arbitrarily changing the rules about what data can be shared. And the fact that medical-related data, like 504-data, may be shared is a violation of HIPAA.
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I will add Jim Morgan that it seems like children are being violated and as an adult I believe this to be ethically and morally wrong. Surreal is an understatement. I fear for the most vulnerable, those that do not have a parent that will or can speak for them. Intolerable!!
Enough!!
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I tried student surveys for my own benefit of feedback. 80% of the kids (high school) are too hesitant to say anything bad about an adult let alone a teacher. For most kids, it goes against everything parents and teachers try to instill about respect and trust. They do not feel comfortable rating a teacher as a peer and some feel intimidated even when I assured them their responses were anonymous and only used by me. Now, I had to eliminate the 10% with answers like “Justin Beiber is ——” or “I don’t care”. That left the 10% who were still angry about their last test and wrote “This class —–” or “I hate this class” as part of their constructive feedback probably because I took away their iPod or called Mom and Dad.
I overheard two of my high students “evaluating” their teachers one day. The conversation consisted of who looked the best in jeans and who was the easiest. My best teacher in high school did not ever win “teacher of the year” or get many gifts. She was serious, tough, and fair. It wasn’t until college that I realized what she taught me was gold. I wish she was still around so I could thank her personally, not send her some distribution chart of survey responses.
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I was responding to my belief in this information being used by the creepy and greedy, in a “cloud” somewhere. Frightening. Duckmonkey, I doubt you were going to use the information gathered to sell or distribute to a vendor. I do not have a problem with your “anonymous” survey. Getting valid info is another story:)
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Not only is this correct, but the stupid Broad trained idiots downtown haven’t figured out yet that there are Special Education teachers and ESL teachers in the district. They haven’t been included in the survey, because according to the braintrust, they aren’t responsible for any children. Apparently neither they nor the children they teach are considered worthy. So therefore, are they going to start at 94% and work their way down? ‘Cause, just in case they can’t do math either, there’s 6% of an evaluation missing.
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> I’ve attached the directions we were given, which includes the questions for grades K-2. They have 40 questions, and when you get to 6-8, there are over 100.
What student is going to answer 40 questions when they are in kindergarten? Or 100 questions when they are in 8th grade? Seriously? Obviously whoever made that survey doesn’t understand kids!
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What a bunch of idiots.
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You should really share this as an opinion/fact piece with your local newspaper. Parents should really know about this. I find that mainly teachers read these anti CCSS/high stakes testing blogs. I’ve met so many parents lately that say I’m over reacting…even as Chicago closes an unprecedented amount of schools. Their heads are still in the sand.
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It may be that parents might not agree that formal student and parental input into teacher evaluation is absurd.
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I saw, but can not find, a pdf of a letter the Broad acolyte send to Syracuse school parents asking them to share their child’s medical history with the school.
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As someone who taught recently in the Syracuse City Schools, I can only shake my head. I left before the real recent madness started, but even in back in 2011, I left a school district that was a “hot mess,” as we used to say. I’ve put out some feelers to some former SCSD colleagues for their take on what this is all about. Any interesting input and I’ll post up their thoughts (anonymously) unless they tell me not to.
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Good recommendations by the children could send a teacher to the Gulag.
Popular teachers are a menace to the system.
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Interesting. Unpopular teachers make students want to go to school and put them in a mindset to learn? That has not been my experience.
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Popularity does not correlate with effectiveness one way or the other. That’s one of many reasons students and parents should not be part of a teacher’s formal evaluation.
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Actually it is your post that suggests popularity and effectiveness are correlated. You postulate a negative correlation when you say they are a menace to the system.
I don’t think that is necessarily true, and all other things equal, I would rather my children be in classes that they look forward to attending then ones that they dread attending. I think most parents would agree.
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1) You’re mixing up me with Joseph;
2) If my children dread going to the dentist, should they never go?
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thought i would get two comments in with one entry.
The right dentist analogy should be that if there is a dentist your children dread going to and another equally competent dentist your children do not dread going to, which should you take them too?
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Teachingeconomist, doing the right thing is not always popular. Sometimes it is, other times it isn’t. Teachers have to be empowered to do the right thing and rise above politics and popularity contests.
That seems to me a no-brainer. Do you want teachers to be real people of integrity, or chipper customer service specialists?
(And of course you want kids to like the teacher; I’m just pointing out that this isn’t always what will happen. Do you think we’re supposed to make everyone like us, Death of a Salesman-style?)
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I certainly agree that doing the right thing might not necessarily make a teacher popular, so I would not recommend the opinion of parents and students be given a large weight in the formal evaluation process. I do think that a teacher who can do the right thing AND promote a positive learning environment is a better teacher than one that does the right thing but is unable to promote a positive learning environment. I think teacher evaluations should reflect that difference.
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Giving easy grades is too often perceived as “good teaching”.
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Perhaps that is true, but it is not the view of this parent.
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Divide up the class, it’s time to play the Family Feud. Survey says… surveys are bo-ring.
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Teacher and/or student surveys are part of Connecticut’s new teacher evaluation system. They count for 10% of your score. They are supposed to focus on feelings about the school, not about individual teachers. It is my understanding that survey results are aggregated by school, not by classroom. Thus the majority of respondents may not be your own students or their parents.
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The Tripod Survey was designed by Dr. Ron Ferguson, Kennedy School at Harvard. His first version was about 10 years ago as a research project with Minority Student Achievement Network. His research has informed thousands of administrators and teachers in addressing the achievement gap.
He has surveyed thousands and thousands of students – all anonymously – and the results are informed and compelling – including dispelling some negative myths about what educators perceive as home issues related to learning that are not.
His more recent efforts provide information to one school. Earlier surveys were pooled for research. His rule: only the teacher gets the information about his/her class.
I will post more later, but this is bona fide research with university research protocols.
Look up Tripod Project, MSAN, or Dr. Ferguson.
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I call bullshit.
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But was it made to be part of a teacher’s evaluation? Should it determine whether a teacher keeps his/her job or not? Was it intended to gather information on parents, children and teachers so that it could be sold to the highest bidder? Was it intended for kindergarten kids to answer 40 questions, plus questions about their home environment? How does the home environment pertains to a teacher’s qualifications for their job? Are we responsible for the tv in the bedroom? Are we responsible for the lack of books in a home? Are we responsible for the fact that parents do not communicate with their children? What does any of it have to do with MY teaching? You have missed the point entirely.
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“. . . his is bona fide research with university research protocols.”
And so was Eugenics during its hay day.
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If you have not seen the survey, read how the results were used in the original research, or spoken with practitioners (teachers) who have learned a great deal from Dr. Ferguson based on his research, then your comments are premature. Since when is a Harvard professor’s research problematic and what does that have to do with Eugenic or subject to be deemed bulls***.
The Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard
http://www.agi.harvard.edu/
Closing the Achievement Gap Without Widening a Racial One
By MICHAEL WINERIP
After surveying thousands of students in suburban schools, Dr. Ferguson drew numerous conclusions about expectations, curriculum, and pedagogy.
In all it’s simplicity, the Tripod Project is based on his tripod premise that achievement relies on: Content, Pedagogy, and Relationships.
I suggest you search the data base of the hundreds of research reports and abstracts on the AGI site, many of which used the Tripod data before making generalizations that all research is bad and all data bases are used for spying and fulfilling conspiracy theories.
Dr. Ferguson’s work on this began working with PUBLIC SCHOOL (not charter) school districts, school districts who bring a few hundred students together every year to unpack issues around the achievement gap, districts who bring teachers together to study and share their action research around specific topics (disproportionality, WIDA standards and ESL practices, and more).
I can go with conspiracy theories with the best of you – check out my latest blog comparing ed reform and WarGames – but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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When I hear of “achievement gap” I hear edudeformer language being used. Perhaps you don’t. It’s one of those loaded terms “How can one be against closing the achievement gap?” Well, in many ways as the “achievement gap” almost always corresponds to standardized test scores which are at face value completely bogus. Using such language tends to lessen the inherent complexities that are involved in the teaching and learning process. And using invalid information (as almost all information gleaned from standardized test scores is) as a base point for discussing improving the teaching and learning process is pointless as any information gleaned is “vain and illusory”.
I wrote what I wrote because I saw an argument justified in the “authority” mode and that doesn’t necessarily sit well with me.
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The so-called Achievement Gap does depend on test scores. Do those test scores then mean absolutely nothing? How do you account for the differences on the tests if not by assuming they are valid reflections of “what the students know”?
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Funny you should mention “Eugenics”…it’s now called “Trans humanism” or human+..
Google those terms (only with a glass of vino…) and you will be shocked…Kinda like Monsanto’s GMO that causes cancer, and their “Round up” pesticides that are destroying beehives all over the nation. Seen many bees buzzing this spring???
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I can’t believe they do garbage like this. The people that come up with this are out of it.
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“Perhaps you don’t. It’s one of those loaded terms “How can one be against closing the achievement gap?” Well, in many ways as the “achievement gap” almost always corresponds to standardized test scores which are at face value completely bogus.”
My the obsession with obsession over test scores. Well before there was state testing on steroids, well before NCLB, and well before the corporate folks realized there was profit to be made off the backs of kids, the achievement between black students and white students was significant. This was not illustrated by test scores, this was illustrated by comparing grades, you know, good old fashioned grades that teachers give kids; it was based on graduation rates and drop out rates; it was based on kids in honors classes and AP classes and kids not; college attendance… disproportionality in recommendations for special education – –
So before there were the reformers who are driving us all crazy and the test making profiteers, there were differences – and folks like Ron Ferguson, James Comer, and other researchers (not reformers, researchers) began to dig down more deeply into the root causes – and the way they got their information was, wait for it, by asking the students!
So – back to the start of this, if Syracuse is using the Tripod Project to provide teachers will valuable information about their students’ perceptions of school, strategies that work, pedagogy, and other beneficial information – good for them – – – especially since Syracuse has jumped on the charter bandwagon, visited New Orleans as a model, and other steps that should be on the radar much more than using a Harvard researcher’s study.
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